Recently solar heat has being used in many buildings mainly for solar water heating and space heating. There is also solar cooling equipment for buildings. Usually the solar energy application in a building needs separated and extra equipments. Some of these equipments may be complex and expensive. For example, to heat water or space, an independent solar heat collector and independent solar heat storage are required. To cool a building, a expensive air conditioning equipment (such as compressor and condenser) and electricity may be required. A simple space-heating device, for example a Trombe wall also needs a heat absorber on the front of the building wall. All of the above-mentioned equipments require materials to make and need energy for manufacture and transportation. This is opposite to our goal to use solar energy for energy saving.
In fact, any building has many building elements that face to sunlight. There are enough surfaces to absorb solar energy and the absorbed heat is enough for the demand of hot water, space heating and cooling in the building at a sunny day. These building elements include wall, roof, floor, door, window, fence, deck, pillar, veranda, path, driveway, awning, brick, tile, covering of window, covering of door, solar heat collector, swim pool and a combination of them. Furthermore, the materials of the building elements also have large enough heat capacity to store the solar heat absorbed for use. These materials may include brick, stone, sand, soil, cement, metal, alloy, bitumen and reinforced concrete etc.
On the other hand, if we use the solar heat collector and storage equipment to replace building element, it also can save building materials and cost. Long time ago our forefathers used building elements for soar heating or cooling. The buildings in a high latitude area usually have a dark color and heavy wall to absorb and store more solar heat. The buildings in a lower latitude area usually have a light color wall to reflect the sunlight. This idea and arrangement has been used and continued until today. The above arrangement is not perfect. When we use a building to absorb more solar heat at cool seasons, the building needs more air conditioning energy at the hot season. Vice versa, when a building reflects most of the sunlight, the building will need more heating energy at cool season. If the absorbed solar heat not only can heat the building but also can cool the building automatically, then we can make arrangement to absorb the solar heat as much as possible at any seasons for two opposite requirements.
The purpose of this disclosure is to find a simple and cost effective way for using solar heat in a building not only for heating but also for cooling without employing any air conditioning device. So that existing building heating and cooling device may become a backup only. Thus the traditional energy consumption can be reduced significantly. The first idea is to collect and store the solar heat by building element(s) and materials for reducing the extra cost of the solar heat collector and storage equipment. The second idea is to use an existing or new developed solar heat collector and/or storage instrument as building element(s) for reducing the cost of building. The third idea is that the collected solar heat is transferred by a fluid, a mechanism is used to direct and control the fluid direction, speed and capacitance, thus we not only can heat the building, but also can cool the building. Furthermore, most of the goals can be achieved by solar heat driven automatic circulating (refer to our other inventions) to reduce the consumption of circulating power. Here said building is any building having an elements that can reach sunlight. The buildings may include commercial buildings, industrial buildings, agriculture buildings, residential buildings, education buildings and defence buildings etc.
Following is the brief introduction of the background of some new developed solar heat collector and building elements.
Solar heating including solar water and space heating of a building is used widely for industrial, commercial, agricultural and residential purposes. Most of the solar heating systems separate solar heat collecting device and storing device. For example, a swimming pool is a solar heat storage device, but its solar heat collector may be put on the roof of a building. A domestic solar heating system has a separated solar heat collector and a water tank, even though they are located very closely. This arrangement increases the heat loss in two devices and connecting tubes. It also increases the costs of equipment, installation, operation and maintenance. It is possible to integrate solar heat collecting device with solar heat storing device, because of the new technologies and products. For example we may add a solar heat absorb coating at a solar heat storing device e.g. a swimming pool or a water tank. Or we can put a flat solar heat storage tank in a solar heat collector. In either case, the cost of equipments, installation, operation and maintenance will be reduced. The solar heat may be used more popular.
Recently to reduce the climate change by humankind energy consumption, more and more renewable energies are used. For the application of renewable energies, we need to add some new equipment. For example, to use the wind energy we need wind turbine, tower and huge space. They need to consume energy first. The renewable energy equipment may also generate new pollution to earth. For example, the existing solar heat collector's insulation and the painting of the frame may be a new pollution source. Further more the existing building uses a lot bricks and concrete. They need huge energy to produce. When the building is out of the service, all the building materials become garbage. All the energy used for manufacture these building materials are wasted. This disclosure released a building element mainly made of glass. It is an insulating glass style solar heat collector. It not only strong enough like the existing building, but also consume less energy to manufacture. Furthermore the building element can collect the solar heat for building heating and cooling. After the service of the building, the glass and metal can be recycled easily and cost effectively. Even though the building is in operation, the solar heat collector can also be replaced or recoated.